The editors of The Best American Comics are soliciting submissions for their series! Maybe, if you send your comics to them, you’ll get lucky! Here is their request!

Dear cartoonist, editor, publisher, or other individual involved in comics in some other capacity,

We are the series editors for the Best American Comics. We are sending you this mail to let you know (or remind you) about what the Best American Comics is and how to submit your comics.

What is The Best American Comics?
It’s an annual anthology of the best comics short stories and (excerpts of) graphic novels by North American authors each year, published by Houghton Mifflin. It is part of the prestigious Best American series, which also includes The Best American Short Stories, Essays, Non-Required Reading, and so on.

Eligibility
The author must be North American (i.e. from Canada, United States, or Mexico). Work published between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008 is eligible for the 2009 volume. The 2010 volume will cover work published from 9/1/08 – 8/31/09, and so on. Individual issues, collections, original graphic novels, and self-published comics (including mini-comics) are eligible for consideration. We must see your comics in order to consider them! Please send one copy of each book you publish to us. Please clearly label each book submitted with contact information and date of publication. Comics published on-line must be submitted in the form of print-outs.

How does it work?
The series editors (that’s us) are responsible for collecting, reviewing, and selecting semi-finalists from all comics published by North American authors in a given year. Each year the editorial team (ourselves and Houghton Mifflin in-house editor Anjali Singh) select an established comics author to act as guest editor. The guest editor is responsible for choosing among the semi-finalists (and adding to the list if he or she sees fit) to create the list of works for inclusion in the book. If your work is on the final list, you will be contacted by us in October or November for permission.

Send Us Your Comics!
We  hope you will put the Best American Comics on your finished book mailing list and automatically send in anything that might be eligible. Keep in mind that even if you miss one year’s deadline a book will be eligible for the following year’s volume.

Note that the publishing deadline for the 2009 volume is coming up at the end of this month.  We will only accept books for this volume until mid-September so send your books in sooner rather than later!

Please send your books to us at the address below. If you have questions don’t hesitate to e-mail us at either jabel@jessicaabel.com or matt@mattmadden.com

Feel free to forward this message to anyone you know that is involved in comics, especially small or self-publishers.

yours,

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden

Mail all your eligible comics to:
Jessica Abel & Matt Madden
Series Editors
The Best American Comics
Houghton Mifflin
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003